Caramel Sauce

Caramel sauce is a rich, flowing sweet sauce of a golden-amber colour, one of the most popular dessert sauces in the world. Its base is caramel — sugar melted and heated to caramelisation, when it takes on a deep amber colour and a characteristic flavour with a noble note of light bitterness.

The sauce is made thus: sugar is slowly heated (by the dry method or with a little water) until it melts and takes on a golden-brown hue. Into this hot caramel warm cream is carefully poured (the mass hisses and foams vigorously) and butter is added, and often a pinch of salt too — thus arises the now-popular salted caramel. The whole mixture turns into a smooth, glossy, velvety sauce. The key to success is not to burn the sugar, otherwise the caramel will taste bitter. Caramel sauce is exceptionally versatile: it is drizzled over ice cream, pancakes, waffles, cheesecake, panna cotta, and apple pies, added to coffee and desserts, and used as a filling for sweets and cakes. Its rich sweet-creamy flavour with caramel depth makes any dessert cosier and richer.